Uppity Women of the New World presents more than 200 New World pioneers and adventurers. Spanning the early 1500's to the mid-1800's, Leon follows the women who braved new worlds. Documenting not only the women who journeyed to distant lands but the indigenous women who met them there, she gives us the inside scoop on these brave and daring dames.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap:

With guts, great-heartedness, and a certain grim determination, the extraordinary women profiled in Uppity Women of the New World rose to many occasions and grandly surpassed them, despite the hardships in their time. These underrepresented women of history lived in an age when the term "global" first became a word and tenaciously carved out an existence that had not previously been available to them.

Covering the first centuries of colonization of the Americas, New Zealand, and Australia, Uppity Women of the New World profiles 220 adventurous women and reflects a time when they ran businesses, owned land, handled and hustled money, fought for their respective countries and beliefs, and dallied in exploration.

A woman with a sharp tongue in her head, and a sharper sword in her scabbard, Anne Dieu-le-veut came from Brittany, France, drawn to the free-form Caribbean "republics" of Santo Domingo (later Haiti) and Tortuga by the prospect of a piratical future. Upon arrival, in the 1660s, she married Pierre, a local buccaneer. Only after the ceremony did she fidn out that Pierre was going through pirate rehab: he'd already founded a town and was planning more embarrassing good deeds, when he up and died.

Anne got very testy at being the widow of such a wuss. Other pirates disparaged her, and she took to aiming pistols at their privates. One of her targets, however, a pirate named Laurent de Graffe, begged for mercy so nicely that Dieu-le-veut decided to drag him to the altar.

Now, by God, she was gonna have a social life and a career. She went on all of Laurent's raids, and was looked upon by the crew as a regular lucky charm. Then the warrenty ran out on her good fortune. In a fierce battle with a nicely laden Spanish ship, a cannonball found its mark and tore poor Laurent in two.

Everyone took time out to rubberneck. The carnage of Anne's expired husband was awesome. Pulling herself together, Anne took command of the ship and shouted in her best piretese, "Get back to the fight, me buckos!" She averted a boarding by the Spaniards, then went on the attack. In short order, the priates' boarding hooks were digging into the sides of the galleon with a satisfying crunch.

"We've won!" Anne screeched, starting a vicroty conga-line; but her joy was short lived. Spanish reinforcements arrived, wounding the female buccanner and taking most of the crew prisoner, including her.

No one quite knows what became of Anne; however, it's said, she left behind a cranky daughter who inherited her mother's testosterone-laden bluster, and went through life dueling with any fellow foolish enough to ask for her hand.